And we said No

She came into our living room and sat in the yellowish-orange chair. My girls ran around her and giggled. She played with Julia, and listened to all of her stories about My Little Ponies. She told Julia that Rainbow Dash is her favorite.

I sat on the couch under a quilt; tired, cold, worn down, nervous. I looked around my house and saw boxes of kitchen cabinets in the corner, clutter all around, and I could feel the vomit wanting to come up.

She asked us about our wedding, our parents, where our adoptive child will sleep. She asked if I would do my one on one interview with her and Paul took the girls for a walk.

She asked me about my relationship with my dad. She asked me about being sexually abused. She asked me if now was the time to adopt. I cried. I felt humiliated. I felt like all of our friends were judging us without even knowing the conversation was happening. I felt like I had failed.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me she knows that God has called us to adoption, that she knows we are good parents, that I am a good mom. She told me that God didn't give me a spirit of timidity but of power.

She asked me again...is now the time for you to adopt?

She told me that there is no shame in postponing. She said that I am doing good, hard work in counseling and she doesn't want me to be distracted by the adoption process and stop healing. She asked me again "is now the time for you to adopt?".

She asked Paul to come in and talk with us. She told him our conversation. She asked us again "is now the time for you to adopt?".

She told us our options. She told us we could complete our home study and postpone referral. She told us that we could stop the home study process and start over again when we were ready. And she asked again "is now the time for you to adopt?'

Paul took a deep breath, and paused. He asked questions. He said that finishing our home study and postponing referral was a good choice. She gave us time to talk. We told her the same thing.

She got up to leave, and told us that she would see us in the morning.

Everything in the pit of my stomach told me that we needed stop. Paul was hesitating, and that meant we need to figure out why. Continuing this process wouldn't be right if we didn't know.

She hugged me, told me she was going to be praying for me, and left.

We have spent today trying to figure out why there was hesitation, and we don't know. We honestly don't know. but we know that God knows. We know that God is going to show us in His timing, and until then we will wait.

Waiting is hard, but we know He has called us to adoption. So we will wait until he says it is time.

So we said no when she asked if this is the right time to adopt.